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The Kenyan dragonflies: past, present and future

Laban Njoroge will present the Department of Biological Science seminar with a talk entitled, "The Kenyan dragonflies: past, present and future".

Mr. Laban Njoroge is from Kenya. He is both a conservation and medical entomologist with a big passion also for commercial and forensic entomology. He is currently the Keeper (or Curator) of Entomology at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi. Previously he has researched on mosquitoes with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). His broad knowledge of insects has seen him undertake numerous consultancy works in Kenya. He has collaborated with many researchers from all over the world publishing many papers including in high impact journals like Science and PLOS ONE. Currently he is working on aquatic invertebrates specifically the dragonflies, mayflies and caddisflies. He has been at University of Cape Town for the past 3 month courtesy of a fellowship called All Africa House and being hosted by Prof. Les Underhill. During his stay he completed and submitted two papers on Kenyan dragonflies to two separate journals.

Abstract:

I analyzed data from a dragonfly database within the Virtual Museum (VM) maintained by Animal Demographic Unit at UCT. The main purpose was to make sense of the data with a view of applying our findings in conservation efforts and policy development.

The work also involved adding new records from Kenya to the database. This was followed by analyses and mapping of distributions for species of interest. The resulting manuscript was published on The Biodiversity Observations (BO); an online journal by ADU.

Highlights:

1. An up-to-date dragonfly checklist for Kenya was produced.

2. We got an understanding of how dragonflies have been collected in Kenya in the past, realized where we are and made future projections.

3. We identified major gaps in dragonflies sampling in Kenya.

4. Our findings were found to be of great relevance for conservation and policy development in Kenya moving forward.

Date:

Tuesday, June 13, 2017 - 13:00

Venue:

Niven Library, Department of Biological Sciences, Upper Campus, UCT

Contacts

Science FacultyLevel 6, PD Hahn Building
Upper Campus,
University of Cape TownContact us